Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

It’s pretty much a given that if you hand me a queer historical fiction novel I am damn well going to enjoy it 😌 Everyone (I hope) at this point has heard of Anne Lister, Gentleman Jack, 19th-century lesbian extraordinaire, but there’s still not that much written about her (many) lovers. Emma Donoghue has sought to begin rectifying this with Learned by Heart, which focuses on Anne’s relationship with Eliza Raine while they were 14/15-year-old boarders at school.

Eliza Raine was a mixed-race Anglo-Indian girl, so I did feel a bit hesitant given that Donoghue, though a lesbian, is also white. But she’s done copious research and while the focus is mainly on the closed little bubble of her and Lister’s relationship at school, there is also good commentary on colonialism and the racism & homophobia of 19th-century Britain.

I’ve never read Donoghue before, but I immediately clicked with her writing style. The book is written with 19th-century cadences but it’s not overdone. It’s evocative and the scenes conjured are vivid. She’s also great at showcasing the intensity of teenage love. Eliza and Lister feel like they’re discovering everything for the first time, emotions are heightened, extravagant promises are made wildly and then not kept. While Lister is obviously iconic, she was also a bit of a player and left a lot of broken hearts in her wake. I loved how Donoghue also included the hints that Lister may have been non-binary but didn’t have the terminology for it, which was mentioned in one of my recent nonfiction reads Before We Were Trans - love a bit of serendipity like that!

Lister is just such an iconic figure in queer history and I’m glad for this beautiful new addition, meticulously researched, which also puts a spotlight on a queer woman of colour. I’d love for another book (or several!) which goes into more detail about Eliza’s life after school, which was unfortunately largely spent in an asylum.

Much of Eliza’s writings are lost as she would instruct Lister to burn her letters, but I’m just imagining the other brilliant works that could be written using her life as inspiration! I think I would have preferred it if Learned by Heart only focused on their school life, as there are a few letters interspersed from Eliza to Lister during her confinement as an adult, and I think they deserved more page-time than they got.

Out on the 24th August!